Teaching Portfolio handbook - UA Faculty Affairs · update your Teaching Portfolio throughout your career as an instructor. The primary purpose of this handbook is to introduce and

Hannelore B. Rodriguez-Farrar

A Publication ofThe Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and LearningBrown University©Third Edition, Revised 2006

TheTeaching Portfolioa handbook for faculty, teaching assistants and teaching fellows

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Jan 6 2013 http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/docs/teach_port.pdf

Contents

Introduction

The Format

Procedure

Articulate a Personal Teaching Philosophy or Statement About Your Teaching

Gather Your Evidence

Organize Your Evidence

Write Reflective and Summary Statements About the Evidence

Share Your Draft with Others and Revise

Rewrite Your Curriculum Vitae, and Refer Readers to Your Teaching Portfolio

Conclusion

Appendix: Sample Teaching Portfolios

Bibliography

The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

About the Author

Introduction

Excellence in teaching has become a stock phrase in mostfaculty job descriptions; yet how does one demonstrate this tocurrent colleagues and/or future employers? One answer is a

Teaching Portfolio which is a description of an instructor’s majorstrengths and teaching achievements. It describes documents and materi-als which collectively suggest the scope and quality of an instructor’steaching proficiency. Over 400 institutions nationwide use TeachingPortfolios in personnel decisions regarding faculty appointments.Demonstrating an effective teaching philosophy is becoming moreimportant at all institutions of higher education; thus, you will revise andupdate your Teaching Portfolio throughout your career as an instructor.

The primary purpose of this handbook is to introduce and explainthe Teaching Portfolio concept as a way to demonstrate one’s teachingcredentials to colleagues, department chairs and potential employers.Individuals and/or departments may also use Teaching Portfolios forother uses such as a means for assessment and development of courses, away to compare individuals for teaching awards, for contract renewalsand for documenting general departmental teaching effectiveness.1 Tocreate several Teaching Portfolios for different contexts may prove fruit-ful as a way to continue to develop as an instructor.

In many cases, creating your first Teaching Portfolio enables you, theinstructor, to think more critically about your teaching, to create newmethods of assessing it and to discuss pedagogy with colleagues, advi-sors, students and others. Fundamentally, a Teaching Portfolio is similarto an artist’s portfolio: a sampling of the breadth and depth of an artist’sworks in order to display to the viewer the artist’s abilities, strengths andstyles. But, unlike artists’ portfolios, the main body of your portfolioguides and informs the reader through this sampling of your teaching

introduction 3

.Please refer to other Sheridan Center Handbooks on Instructional Assessment in HigherEducation and The Syllabus Handbook.

documents. These objects are very individual and personal, and no oneportfolio is more correct than another. As such, this handbook cannotgive you hard fast rules for the contents of your portfolio.What I hope toprovide are some ideas, suggestions and examples.The majority of thesesuggestions for Teaching Portfolio contents represent those most com-monly required by departmental search committees and personneloffices. The goal of your portfolio is to present your teaching skills,experiences and credentials in a meaningful positive package.

Essentially,Teaching Portfolios contain two basic elements: evidenceof teaching and reflections on that evidence. The evidence begins withwhat is normally listed on curriculum vitae: lists of courses, lists ofresponsibilities, etc.; however, it extends beyond to include a variety ofactivities which have had an impact on your teaching such as TeachingCertificate programs, teaching seminars, videotapes of your lectures andclassrooms, etc. The addition of these other documents adds depth toyour teaching curriculum vitae. The meaningful aspect of the TeachingPortfolio lies in your written reflective statements about the evidence ofyour teaching.

When most of us teach, time constraints and other commitmentsforce us to concentrate on what we teach, namely, the content. In creat-ing a Teaching Portfolio, the key questions are why you teach and howyou teach, that is, your teaching goals and your objectives for achievingthose goals. Reflecting on these issues is a difficult task and is best tackledwith others.The Teaching Portfolio shifts the emphasis of your teachingaway from content and focuses it on delivery and learning.Why do youteach? How do you teach? Why do you teach the way you do? These aredifficult questions which is why, ideally,Teaching Portfolios are the prod-uct of collaboration with colleagues, mentors, students and others asinput from these sources helps you clarify and refine your personal state-ments and reflective descriptions. The process of creating your TeachingPortfolio may prove to be more difficult than originally expected; there-fore, constant and honest feedback will be key to producing a successfulportfolio.

4 teaching portfolios

The Format

The teaching portfolio consists of two essential parts: evi-dence and reflections on that evidence. In the sample on the nextpage, the first two sections included in the table of contents are

headings for self-reflective texts which explain, elaborate and highlightthe evidence listed in the appendices.These statements are the “meat” ofyour Teaching Portfolio as they convey to the reader your teaching style,teaching philosophy, efforts to improve your craft, etc. For the sake ofclarity and space, the evidence and data can be compiled in a series ofappendices as shown; however, there may be some evidence which youwould like to include at the outset. Rather than burden your main textwith this evidence, you may want to consider attached appendices as wellas appendices that would be available upon request. In the sample, I haveincluded summaries of my student evaluations, a sample of my com-ments on student papers and samples of my course assessments through-out the semester because these documents were short, easily reproducedand immediately illustrative of the concepts discussed in the main text.On the next page is the format of my spring 1997 Teaching Portfolio.(Other examples may be found in the Appendix.)

the format 5

Hannelore B. Rodriguez-FarrarTeaching Portfolio

table of contents

Educational PhilosophySample Course Construction: Baroque Art at Rhode IslandCollege, Spring 1997

Related Teaching ResponsibilitiesThe Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning,Brown UniversityTeaching Award and Teaching-Related Publications

Appendices Attached1: Syllabus for Baroque Art2: Sample of my comments on a paper as well as a studentself-evaluation form3: Course evaluations and summaries4: Copy of Classroom Visitation Form completed by Department Chair5: Summaries of student evaluations and copies of The Critical Review (Brown University)6: Samples of Individual Teaching Consultation Report,Sheridan Center

Appendices (Available Upon Request)A: Daily Handouts from Baroque ArtB: Syllabi and handouts from ha 01, ha 02, ha 56, ha 85C: itc Training Packet, Sheridan CenterD:Teaching Portfolio PacketE: bruin Course MaterialsF: Sheridan Center Teaching CertificatesG:Sheridan Center MaterialsH:Presidential Teaching Award, Brown University I: Sheridan Center Teaching Exchange


sample

procedure 7

Procedure

The procedure for construcing your Teaching Portfolioconsists of six basic steps. These steps offer sufficient latitudethat each Portfolio will be unique and will reflect the appropri-

ate information necessary for specific circumstances.

1. Articulate a personal teaching philosophy.

2. Gather your evidence.

3. Organize your evidence.

4. Write reflective and summary statements about the evidence.

5. Share your draft with others and revise.

6. Rewrite your resume/curriculum vitae, and under “Teaching” referreader to your Teaching Portfolio.

Step 1: Articulate a PersonalTeaching Philosophy or Statement About Your Teaching

While there are no set standards for contents of Teaching Portfolios,most departments, chairs, personnel offices and other institutionsrequiring Teaching Portfolios for contract decisions, awards and recogni-tion, and hiring practices require a personal statement about one’s teach-ing philosophy. During the interviewing process, many institutions askthis question, so articulating this statement in your Teaching Portfoliowill better prepare you for your interview.

A teaching philosophy is a very broad personal statement which cananswer one or more of the following questions: how do you teach? whydo you teach? why do you teach the way you do? what are your teachinggoals, methods and strategies? It does not describe the content of acourse, but rather your goals for what students will learn and the objec-tives by which you will help them achieve those goals. Do not assumethat what you do as a teacher is commonplace. Instead, describing your


teaching philosophy will help you realize how unique it is. Refining thisstatement is critical and is best accomplished through collaboration, i. e.,discuss the content of this statement both before and after you write itwith colleagues, mentors, advisors, students and others.2 Remember, ateaching philosophy is a work in progress; it will change as you developas a teacher.

Step 2: Gather Your Evidence

Collect all the materials related to your teaching. These come from avariety of sources. Try to be creative and inclusive in assembling thesematerials. Below is a sampling possible evidence.

PERSONAL MATERIAL

■ statement of teaching responsibilities, including specific courses,and a brief description of the way each course was taught.

■ personal teaching philosophy, strategies and objectives

■ personal teaching goals for next 5 years

■ representative course syllabi (include why courses constructed this way)

■ description of steps taken to evaluate and improve one’s teaching

■ curricular revisions – new course projects, materials, courseassignments, etc.

■ self evaluation – include “an explanation of any contradictory orunclear documents or materials in the Teaching Portfolio”

■ publications on teaching – any editing, contributions, etc.

■ information on direction/supervision of honors, graduate thesesand research group activities

. Later when preparing for interviews, identify how your philosophy fits into the mis-sion of the institution and the goals of the department.

procedure 9

MATERIAL FROM OTHERS

■ statements from colleagues who have observed your teaching

■ statements from colleagues who have witnessed out-of-class activ-ities such as instructional and curricular development and instruc-tional research

■ student and course evaluations which show improvements in effectiveness

■ department statements on your teaching

■ performance reviews as a faculty advisor

■ honors, awards, and other recognition

■ outside agencies’ invitations for papers on teaching

■ invitations from other schools to demonstrate effective teaching

■ participation in teaching development within your discipline

■ documentation of teaching development in Sheridan Center orother teaching centers

■ teaching research

■ videotape of your teaching

■ student scores on standardized tests

PRODUCTS OF GOOD TEACHING

■ student essays, creative work, lab books, publications, course-related work

■ “Information about the effect of the professor’s courses on studentcareer choices or help given by the professor to secure studentemployment.”

■ record of students who succeed to advanced courses in discipline

■ statement from alumni

■ examples of graded student essays showing excellent, average andpoor work along with instructors’ comments as to why they were sograded

Step 3: Organize your evidence

Upon pulling the evidence of your teaching together, decide how best togroup it and to summarize the contents. For example, do the syllabi ofcourses you taught coalesce around a specific theme about your teach-ing? Have you participated in programs, colloquia and seminars to im-prove your teaching skills? Do you have a variety of measures of yourteaching effectiveness? Refine your data by prioritizing it according tothe goal of the Teaching Portfolio. For example, if you want to emphasizeyour efforts toward improving your teaching skills, the contents of yourTeaching Portfolio would revolve around this central focus.

Ideally, the organization of the evidence allows you to consolidate avariety of documents under one theme. In the example above on page 3,I separated my own course from courses for which I served as a teachingassistant. My experiences as a teaching assistant are collected under theheading “Teaching and Related Responsibilities” while my course is givenmore emphasis by having its own section. Course syllabi and handoutsare then grouped within appropriate appendices allowing me to summa-rize and highlight relevant teaching skills, methods and strategies in theconcise statement included in the body of the Teaching Portfolio.

Step 4: Write reflective and summary statements about theevidence

A reflective statement allows you to identify your teaching goals in aspecific context. Strive to be concise and to the point. Summarize yourdata giving contextual clarification where needed.These statements canbe of any length, but keep your audience and readers in mind. Incorpo-rate your evidence, but do not force the reader to refer to specificaspects of each relevant appendix. Instead, describe your evidence,explain its importance and direct the reader to the appropriate appen-dices as documentation of your statement. On the following page is anexcerpt from my sample portfolio.


procedure 11

A common source of feedback on one’s teaching is evaluations by thedepartment within which you teach either from a supervising profes-sor(s), and/or students. Since these evaluations, in many cases, present awide variety of views of one’s teaching, they can appear disconnectedand misleading. By organizing, reviewing and evaluating them in theirentirety, you can add insight and clarify the context of the criticism andpraise. Group the evaluations in sections which best highlight the aspects

Teaching and Related Responsibilities

As indicated, I have been the teaching assistant for the followingcourses:

■ Course xx: General Survey of the Topic■ Course xx: Survey of Topic in Context■ Course xx: Example A■ Course xx: Example B

For these courses, I was responsible for two weekly sections, thegrading of all exams and papers, the implementation of reviewsections and slide reviews, and the general administrative dutiesneeded for the smooth running of these courses.Approximately50 students signed up for my sections, and in general, they werewell attended.

Departmental evaluations conducted at the end of eachcourse documents student feedback on my teaching and how mysections were run. For Course xx and Course xx, I also conducteda personal mid-semester survey in order to evaluate my sectionsand to improve their quality. Summaries and highlights fromthese evaluations are attached. Finally, The Critical Review, a Brownundergraduate student publication, has featured me in evalua-tions of these courses. Copies of these reviews are also attached.

Please refer to Appendix A: Syllabi and handouts fromcourses;Appendix B: Mid Term Student Evaluations and Year EndStudent Evaluations;Appendix C: Critical Review evaluationsand Appendix D:Teaching References.

sample


you want to emphasize, and then summarize this organization. In yoursummaries, contextualize the evaluations. One strategy is to use excerptsfrom student evaluations which reflect the general nature of the studentresponses.

Step 5: Share Your Draft withOthers and Revise

As mentioned above, the ideal creation of a Teaching Portfolio includesextensive feedback from colleagues, advisors and others. Feedback willhelp you refine and edit your Teaching Portfolio. If you have other col-leagues who are writing Teaching Portfolios as well, offer to read theirdrafts and work together to clarify your ideas.

Step 6: Rewrite Your CurriculumVitae, and Refer Readers to Your Teaching Portfolio

Remember to include in your cover letters some reference to yourTeaching Portfolio. You must try to gauge if a Teaching Portfolio willhelp strengthen your application; remember not all positions will lookupon receiving a twenty-page document with appendices and videotapesas necessary or important. In writing your cover letter, a shortened sum-mary of your teaching philosophy, your teaching interests and strengths,and/or teaching experience will help you introduce your portfolio tothe search committee. Keep in mind the requirements for the position;some institutions expect full dossiers from the beginning while otherswould prefer your portfolio during an interview. In either case, you willhave to send a cover letter and, unless you know that they expect yourportfolio, the cover letter provides the perfect venue for introducingyour portfolio as further evidence of your qualifications for the job.

conclusion 13

Conclusion

T he increased demand for use of the Teaching Portfolio byinstitutions of higher education as a way to measure and predictteaching effectiveness and to document better teaching profi-

ciency prove that these portfolios work.The ever changing landscape ofhigher education now requires more thorough assessments of teachingeffectiveness, and Teaching Portfolios provide a meaningful statement ofteaching abilities.A Teaching Portfolio may be used to land your first job,but it is also an efficient way to evaluate continually your teaching as yougain experience in the classroom. Devise a Teaching Portfolio for thesurvey course you teach every year in order to improve the delivery ofthe syllabus, transform course content and develop new teaching meth-ods or strategies; create a portfolio for any new courses in order to doc-ument its successes and failures; and submit a portfolio for considerationfor national, departmental and disciplinary teaching awards and honors.Just as your research demands constant work to remain current and rel-evant, so too your teaching requires constant development to ensure thatit enables your students to learn effectively. Use your Teaching Portfolioas a method to improve your skills, hone your ideas, and develop newstrategies and techniques.You will find that your Teaching Portfolio willchange with every semester as you take on new teaching challenges;rather than putting off updating your portfolio for job searches, continu-ously update and think creatively about the content of your portfolio.You will find that it will not only improve your Teaching Portfolio itself,it will also change and improve your teaching.

Appendix: SampleTeaching Portfolios

T he following samples of Teaching Portfolios are adaptedfrom Peter Seldin’s The Teaching Portfolio (1991) and SuccessfulUse of Teaching Portfolios (1993). Institutional affiliations and details

have been omitted, and many aspects have been changed.The purpose ofthese examples is to provide you with a sense of the breadth of possibilities.

Linda F. Annis3

table of contentsStatement of Teaching Responsibilities and ObjectivesSyllabi, Reading Lists,Assignments, Exams, and Handouts

from Courses TaughtDescription of Efforts to Improve my TeachingPeer Evaluation of Both my Teaching and Teaching SkillsStudent Teaching Evaluation Data from Courses TaughtVideotapes of My InstructionMeasures of Student AchievementOther Evidence of Good TeachingFuture Teaching Goals

Appendices A: Current Syllabi for All CoursesB: Representative Course MaterialC: Documentation for My Teaching Improvement ActivitiesD: Peer Evaluation and Classroom Observation ReportsE: Videotape of Courses


3. Seldin, 1993, pp. 33–38.

sample

Linda F. Annis4

Department of English

table of contentsTeaching PhilosophyTeaching Responsibilities Teaching MaterialsTeaching MethodsInnovative Teaching Practices Assessment of Teaching EffectivenessAwardsGoals

AppendicesA: Sample Course SyllabiB: Course Handouts C: Summary of Student EvaluationsD: Comments concerning supervision of Graduate StudentsE: Statements from Peers on Teaching Effectiveness

Donald W. Orr5

Department of Mathematics and Physics

table of contentsTeaching-Learning PhilosophyClassroom TechniquesSelf-AssessmentStatement of Performance Goals

AppendicesA: Description of Courses TaughtB: Representative Course SyllabiC: Student Feedback: Numerical DataD: Student Feedback:Written Comments

appendix 15

. Seldin, 1993, pp. 136– 42. 5. Seldin, 1993, pp. 167–73.

sample

sample

Vivia L. Fowler6

Department of Religion

table of contentsStatement of Pedagogical PhilosophyStatement of Teaching Responsibilities and ObjectivesRepresentative Course SyllabiEvaluation of InstructionEfforts to Improve TeachingFuture Teaching Goals

AppendicesA: Practicum Requirements and Evaluative InstrumentsB: Representative Course SyllabiC: Representative Course MaterialsD: Statement from Chairperson of DepartmentE: Student Evaluation SummariesF: Student CommentsG: Example of Course Evolution


6. Seldin, 1993, pp. 167–73.

sample

Nina Caris7

Department of Biology

table of contentsStatement of Teaching Responsibilities Teaching Strategies and MethodsSyllabi and ObjectivesFuture DirectionsEfforts to Improve TeachingMeasures of Teaching EffectivenessOther Teaching Initiatives

AppendicesA: Course Descriptions and EnrollmentsB: Lecture Outlines and ObjectivesC: Sample Transparencies and HandoutsD: Course SyllabiE: Summaries of Student Evaluations and Support Letters

Ronald C. Warner8

Department of Modern Languages and Classics

table of contentsPhilosophy of Teaching and Statement of ResponsibilitiesContribution to University and Department Teaching MissionProfessional Improvement ActivitiesEvidence of Good Classroom Instruction

AppendicesA: Representative Course Syllabi and Course MaterialsB: Peer EvaluationsC: Student EvaluationsD: Awards and Honors

appendix 17

. Seldin, 1993, pp. 110–16.8. Seldin, 1993, pp. 144–49.

sample

sample

Bibliography

Berquist, W. H., and S. R. Phillips. A Handbook for Faculty Development.Volume 2. Berkeley, Calif.: Pacific Soundings Press, 1977.

Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning. Report on Instruc-tional Assessment. Providence, R.I.: Harriet W. Sheridan Center forTeaching and Learning., Brown University, 1995.

Cheney, L. V. Tyrannical Machines. Washington, D.C.: National Endow-ment for the Humanities, 1990.

Deneef, A. Leight, Craufurd D. Goodwin and Ellen Stern McCrate, edi-tors. The Academic’s Handbook. Durham, N.C.: Duke UniversityPress, 1988.

Heiberger, Mary Morris and Vick, Julia Miller. The Academic Job SearchHandbook. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.

Lewis, Adele. The Best Resumes for Scientists and Engineers. New York:John Wiley and Sons, 1988.

Seldin, Peter. Changing Practices in Faculty Evaluation:A Critical Assessmentand Recommendations for Improvement. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Pub-lishers, 1984.

Seldin, Peter. How Colleges Evaluate Professors. Croton-on-Hudson, NY:Blythe-Penington, Ltd., 1975.

Seldin, Peter and Associates. Successful Use of Teaching Portfolios. Bolton,Mass.:Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.

Seldin, Peter. The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Perfor-mance and Promotional/Tenure Decisions. Bolton, Mass.: Anker Pub-lishing Company, Inc., 1991.

Woolcock, Michael J.V. The Syllabus Handbook. Providence, R.I.: TheHarriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning, Brown Uni-versity, 1997.

Zanna, Mark. and John M. Darley, editors. The Compleat Academic: APractical Guide for the Beginning Social Scientist. New York: RandomHouse, 1987.


The Harriet W.Sheridan Center for Teaching andLearning

The harriet w. sheridan center for teaching and learningwas founded in to assist faculty and graduate teaching assistants to improve the quality of undergraduate and graduate

instruction within the University.Today, the center supports members ofthe Brown teaching community in building reflective teaching practiceswhich ensure that a diverse student body has the best possible environmentfor learning. The Brown curriculum promotes the mutually productiverelationship between teaching and research among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. The center plays a crucial role infacilitating the ongoing development of that relationship. The SheridanCenter further seeks to help prepare graduate teaching assistants forproductive professional teaching careers after they leave Brown.

To those ends, the Sheridan Center offers a variety of programs,services and publications. Programs include broad-scale teachingforums, the Sheridan Teaching Seminar lecture series and three SheridanCenter Teaching Certificate programs (I: Building a Reflective TeachingPractice, II: Classroom Tools and III: Professional Development Seminar).Consulting Services provide faculty and graduate students with individualfeedback on classroom performance, course revision, presentation/conference paper skills, and grant requirements. Through the agency offaculty and graduate student liaisons to academic departments, the centerassists with the design and implementation of seminars on discipline-specific teaching and learning. The center also maintains a resourcelibrary of books, articles, journals and videotapes on teaching and learningissues for members of the University teaching community.

he Sheridan Center publications include The Teaching Exchange,Handbooks and a web site. The Teaching Exchange is a bi-annual forum forthe exchange of ideas about teaching across the Brown community.Handbooks include Teaching at Brown, Constructing A Syllabus, The Teaching

the harriet w. sheridan center for teaching 19

Portfolio, and Teaching and Persuasive Communication and Teaching to CognitiveDiversity.The videotape Effective Teaching for Dyslexic/All College Students isdistributed nationally to facilitate understanding of learning diversity inthe classroom. The center’s web site offers / access to informationabout center activities, on-line editions of all publications, and twounique, interactive, pedagogical workshops. The Sheridan Center alsofacilitates the exchange of ideas on teaching and learning at Brownbetween faculty and other individuals and agencies on campus throughThe Brown Teaching Collaborative.

The Sheridan Center is located at Waterman St., near Thayer St. For information about the Center and resources for teachingat Brown, please contact the Center at: Box ; () -;[email protected]; http://www.brown.edu/sheridan_center/


About the Author

hannelore rodriguez-farrar was a Graduate Fellowat Brown University’s Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teach-ing and Learning, formerly known as the Center for theAdvancement of College Teaching (CACT) from September1993 to September 1995.As the Center Fellow she revised andco-edited Teaching at Brown: A Handbook for Faculty,TeachingAssistants and Teaching Fellows and co-edited the CACT hand-books Report on Instructional Assessment and The Syllabus Hand-book. In concert with her Graduate Fellow colleague NobelSanjay Rebello, she created the Center’s peer IndividualTeaching Consultation program. Ms. Rodriguez-Farrar holdsa B.A. from Brown University. She is an A.B.D. in the doc-toral program in the History of Art and Architecture atBrown. In 1990 she won the Brown University PresidentialAward for Excellence in Teaching. She is a member of theBrown University Corporation and is currently completingher Doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Documents

Teaching Portfolio handbook - UA Faculty Affairs · update your Teaching Portfolio throughout your career as an instructor. The primary purpose of this handbook is to introduce and